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Astronomical Tales

Why is the Hubble Space Telescope named after a lawyer who competitively boxed?

Young Edwin Hubble read a lot of books, especially science fiction writers like Jules Verne & H. Rider Haggard. The first signs of Hubble's penchant for astronomy was when Hubble's grandfather asked his grandson about Mars. The young man's reply so impressed the grandfather that he had it published in a Springfield newspaper.

In 1910, while competing in intercollegiate boxing, Hubble was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and passed the bar examination in the U.S. in 1913. Hubble then went on to practice law in Louisville, Kentucky for a year and then returned to the University of Chicago to earn a doctoral degree in astronomy.

Even though his Ph.D. was finished in 1917, and he had an invitation to work at Mount Wilson's largest telescope in the world, Hubble was yet to be an astronomer.

In fact, Hubble even managed to teach high school Spanish before working professionally as an astronomer and was admired especially by his female students who fawned over his British mannerisms in much the same way Indiana Jones had his female admirers in the movie Raiders of the Lost Arc.